Alright. Now before I get into the calculations, it's important to remember that once you start this, your BMR is going to adjust with your new weight gain. You will need to continually adjust your caloric needs based on your new weight, otherwise you will hit another plateau.

Lets start with a baseline of 2500 calories. This what your body needs just to stay at your current weight. For people looking to gain lean muscle, I recommend adding 250-300 calories a day on top of the 2500 in order to create a calorie surplus in your system. This will average out to around 2000 extra calories a week which should have you gaining about a pound of lean muscle every other week.

So now we're looking at a 2800 calorie diet, which is what you will be eating on a day off from the gym. If you do heavy lifting in a gym for one hour, you will need to consume an extra ~500 calories to make up for what your body burns. So here is what you need to focus on...

2800 calories on a rest day with no workout.
3300 calories on a gym day with heavy lifting.

Things are going to get fun now as we start having to get creative with our meals. I personally break down my meal plans with 40% going to protein, 40% going to carbs, and 20% going to fats. It can be tricky do stick to this for every meal so it's important for you to keep a food log of everything you eat for every meal every day. Tedious yes, but also very very important.

Start with a diet that is similar to this; feel free to adjust based on the foods that you enjoy. I would also recommend buying a book that specializes in breaking down the caloric, protein, carb and fat contents of different foods that way you can do your own homework. As you gain weight, you will need to eat more per meal. Either add more different foods or increase the amount of each food group. Be flexible and have fun. The human body is the most advanced machine on this earth, you'll be surprised what you can accomplish with the right fuel.

Alright. Now before I get into the calculations, it's important to remember that once you start this, your BMR is going to adjust with your new weight gain. You will need to continually adjust your caloric needs based on your new weight, otherwise you will hit another plateau.

Lets start with a baseline of 2500 calories. This what your body needs just to stay at your current weight. For people looking to gain lean muscle, I recommend adding 250-300 calories a day on top of the 2500 in order to create a calorie surplus in your system. This will average out to around 2000 extra calories a week which should have you gaining about a pound of lean muscle every other week.

So now we're looking at a 2800 calorie diet, which is what you will be eating on a day off from the gym. If you do heavy lifting in a gym for one hour, you will need to consume an extra ~500 calories to make up for what your body burns. So here is what you need to focus on...

2800 calories on a rest day with no workout.
3300 calories on a gym day with heavy lifting.

Things are going to get fun now as we start having to get creative with our meals. I personally break down my meal plans with 40% going to protein, 40% going to carbs, and 20% going to fats. It can be tricky do stick to this for every meal so it's important for you to keep a food log of everything you eat for every meal every day. Tedious yes, but also very very important.

Start with a diet that is similar to this; feel free to adjust based on the foods that you enjoy. I would also recommend buying a book that specializes in breaking down the caloric, protein, carb and fat contents of different foods that way you can do your own homework. As you gain weight, you will need to eat more per meal. Either add more different foods or increase the amount of each food group. Be flexible and have fun. The human body is the most advanced machine on this earth, you'll be surprised what you can accomplish with the right fuel.

Sweet! I'll copy this. I eat similar, definitely a scaled down version as I only eat enough to sustain my weight, but not enough to gain. Do you have a Monday - Sunday schedule for an entire month. Seriously it feels like I've been eating pasta for the past 10+ years every other day due to convenience factor I suppose...lolz!

I'm not going to write out a whole diet for you, but I will help guide you through the process of creating a diet geared towards your needs. The first thing you will want to get is a journal of some kind that will help you track your progression. I use this one...

It won't matter what you eat day to day as long as it's healthy and you're total calories for the day are more than what you are burning. Having a surplus of calories in your diet is the only true and tested way to gain lean muscle. Stick to six meals a day with an even breakdown of calories for each meal.

Also, I would suggest you limit if not cut out alcohol altogether. Your liver is responsible for synthesizing proteins in your diet necessary for muscle development, and is also responsible removing alcohol from your system. Unfortunately it can't do both at the same time. As long as your system has booze in it, your liver will completely shut down all protein synthesis in your system leaving you will nothing but carbohydrates being absorbed.

If you want you can have a cheat day. Mine is Sunday which is also one of my rest days. I'll bust out the ice cream, chicken wings and cold beer one day a week. The other six days I maintain a strict diet.

Lastly, every five pounds or so that you gain you will want to adjust your BMR calculations to make sure you are increasing the calories you need. As you gain weight you will continually need to eat more to keep that weight on. You're only at ~3000 calories now. I've gotta maintain ~4200, so keep in mind what you might be in for.

I'm not going to write out a whole diet for you, but I will help guide you through the process of creating a diet geared towards your needs. The first thing you will want to get is a journal of some kind that will help you track your progression. I use this one...

It won't matter what you eat day to day as long as it's healthy and you're total calories for the day are more than what you are burning. Having a surplus of calories in your diet is the only true and tested way to gain lean muscle. Stick to six meals a day with an even breakdown of calories for each meal.

Also, I would suggest you limit if not cut out alcohol altogether. Your liver is responsible for synthesizing proteins in your diet necessary for muscle development, and is also responsible removing alcohol from your system. Unfortunately it can't do both at the same time. As long as your system has booze in it, your liver will completely shut down all protein synthesis in your system leaving you will nothing but carbohydrates being absorbed.

If you want you can have a cheat day. Mine is Sunday which is also one of my rest days. I'll bust out the ice cream, chicken wings and cold beer one day a week. The other six days I maintain a strict diet.

Lastly, every five pounds or so that you gain you will want to adjust your BMR calculations to make sure you are increasing the calories you need. As you gain weight you will continually need to eat more to keep that weight on. You're only at ~3000 calories now. I've gotta maintain ~4200, so keep in mind what you might be in for.

Lolz...I gotta hire a nutritionist! I'm going to use this and formulate a new diet plan.

Just trying to do my part to help someone with similar interests as my own. I never had the luxury of a personal trainer or dietician, nor have I gone to school for any type of exercise/diet science. I just read a lot on the topic and experiment a lot. I also spend at least an hour a day every evening planning out meals 24-48 hours in advance, all just to make sure that I reach my goals each day. If not my body will shed weight 10x faster than I can put it back on.

Just trying to do my part to help someone with similar interests as my own. I never had the luxury of a personal trainer or dietician, nor have I gone to school for any type of exercise/diet science. I just read a lot on the topic and experiment a lot. I also spend at least an hour a day every evening planning out meals 24-48 hours in advance, all just to make sure that I reach my goals each day. If not my body will shed weight 10x faster than I can put it back on.

Had a roomate and she would plan out her entire month; breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was pretty neat. I couldn't do that so I actually tried out this "gourmet program," where you can pre-order your food. Ended up losing weight cuz half of the shit I ordered was for people going on a diet or didn't suit my palate.

Gonna try that system rather go on a whim. I find proper dieting and nutrition is just as important as training. It just aint easy preparing all the meals, getting the right supplements. I talked to this bouncer who's 285lbs of rock solid muscle (think Overeem except more of a body building figure)...probably one of the biggest dudes I've seen around and he told me he spends most of his days cooking and hitting the gym...roflz! People don't realize how expensive it is...organic fruits, whole wheat grain, organic milk is twice as much as regular milk, and damn those free range eggs. Don't they realize not everybody can afford those...lolz!

Getting serious about your diet isn't a small task to undertake. It can be daunting without the right guidance and progress monitoring. That's why I like to keep a written log of what I eat. If I see results on the scale or in the mirror that I don't like, it's easy to look back and make adjustments.

As for costs on eating healthy, it's certainly isn't cheap. Especially when your caloric intake starts getting bumped up. I budget $125 a week for my grocery bill, and that doesn't include money spent on protein powders, vitamins or supplements. I'm a bit of a freak though with my daily diet sometimes peaking over 5,000 calories when I'm doing something highly active all day.

Getting serious about your diet isn't a small task to undertake. It can be daunting without the right guidance and progress monitoring. That's why I like to keep a written log of what I eat. If I see results on the scale or in the mirror that I don't like, it's easy to look back and make adjustments.

As for costs on eating healthy, it's certainly isn't cheap. Especially when your caloric intake starts getting bumped up. I budget $125 a week for my grocery bill, and that doesn't include money spent on protein powders, vitamins or supplements. I'm a bit of a freak though with my daily diet sometimes peaking over 5,000 calories when I'm doing something highly active all day.

I use to spend a ton a month on food eating out every day and getting take out. It wasn't the most healthiest, but boy was it good. After the economic crash business started slowing down so I cut down majorly on all expenses...sadly one of em was eating out. Didn't realize how much I saved yet alone the health benefits. But I havn't been able to eat as much either due to time constraints; waking up cookink, preparing, etc.

Your budget is $500 + supplements so probably $600 - $750. Which protein powder are you currently taking. I find shakes to be the easiest. I got an entire list of AWESOME shake recipes if you want to check it out. There's a supplement store that use to sell em at $3.25 then it went up to $4.25 and now it's $5.25 per shake. So I decided to make it myself. It's way better than your Orange Julius smoothies.

I've got three different types of protein powder right now. For a weight gainer/meal replacement I use Cytogainer made by Cytosport. Three scoops gets you almost 600 calories which makes a perfect snack when I can't prepare a full meal.

I also use two protein powders made by Optimum Nutrition. The first is their 100% Whey Gold Standard. If you don't already know, your body absorbs whey protein very quickly making it one of the best types to take in the morning as well as before/after a workout. The other type I use is their 100% Casein Gold Standard. Casein is absorbed by your body at a slower rate, making it ideal for use later in the evening and before you go to bed.

This brings me to another important topic. Fueling your body before you rest/sleep. Make sure you are getting a minimum of 7 hours of sleep a night and try to keep a set sleep time. Doing so will allow you to set up your meals during regular times. To get to my original point though, your last meal should be about 20-30 minutes before you go to bed. Make sure to never skip this meal! It's almost as important as your first meal of the day which should be no more than 20 minutes after you wake up.